How smart parking solutions solve the headache of parking

Smart parking solutions are gaining popularity everyday due to the obvious reason – finding a space to park in an urban setting is a major headache. In this regard, smart parking solutions enabled by sensors and the data they generate can help drivers find parking with more ease.

That was the point raised by Streetline, a U.S.-based smart parking solutions provider.

Needless to say, finding a place to park is a major pain for drivers, for whom spending a good 30 minutes to even an hour looking for parking in a downtown area can be quite common. Meanwhile, the time wasted on parking is not conducive to a city’s well-being, either. Kurt Buecheler, Senior VP of Sales, Marketing, and Business Development at Streetline, noted that parking inefficiency can lead to the following negative consequences:

One-third of all traffic is caused by drivers hunting for limited parking around downtown cities. Two-thirds of people have avoided an outing due to the stress of parking downtown, reducing city vitality.

Corporations are losing money as their employees waste time parking. Drivers have difficulty finding available parking quickly and efficiently. Drivers that can’t find parking waste time looking instead of working.

Corporations are wasting land and tens of thousands of dollars to build and eats, yet often some spaces go unused because drivers couldn’t find them among the multitude.

Cities managing parking don’t know when, where, and how long people are parking in their spaces, so they can’t craft good policy that meets their needs.

Students and faculty find parking difficult when they are uniformed of pricing, policy and availability amongst many locations. University parking departments need to generate revenue through active management of spaces.

Smart parking solutions

This is where end users can be helped by smart parking solutions, which leverage data generated by various parking sensors and connected devices under the IoT scheme. The data is processed, analyzed and turned into real-time insights that can help drivers find parking more easily.

In Streetline’s case, they have solutions that include both software and hardware when needed. “Our solution utilizes hardware data from any combination of pavement and mounted sensors, cameras, smartphone SDKs and data from third-party sources combined with software analysis to power smart parking applications with a continuous, comprehensive and accurate flow of occupancy data for effective parking policy decisions and parking guidance,” Buecheler said. “Our portfolio enables us to serve as providers of real-time parking data monitoring streets, garages and parking lots.”

In some products even artificial intelligence is used, Buecheler said. “Streetline’s Parking Estimation Engine uses machine learning to predict parking occupancy in areas where we do not have full sensor deployment. After two months of training, our system can produce parking guidance with over 90 percent accuracy,” he said.

Streetline’s smart parking solution is already deployed in San Mateo, California, which is using Cisco’s intelligent networking technology platform to connect the city to WiFi alongside Streetline’s smart parking system. According to the case study provided by Streetline, by aggregating the sensor data as well as static garage and lot information, Parker by Streetline, a real-time motorist guidance app, provides residents with hands-free voice navigation to guide drivers to open parking spaces.

According to Buecheler, Streetline’s solutions are suitable for a range of end user entities. “We make parking easy for drivers and merchants, corporations, cities and universities. Our solutions make parking faster and more efficient, by giving stakeholders the tools they need to make parking work,” he said.